November 07, (THEWILL) – The football calendar is only four months old across Europe’s top leagues and already the shelf life of the modern day football manager has been set in stark relief especially in the very tight-contested top flight football of the English Premier League. The odds against managing a football team in England’s most prestigious competition was no clearer than when Nuno Espirito Santo of North London outfit, Tottenham Hotspurs, clashed against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer of Manchester United on October 30 in Tottenham Stadium, with the heads of not one but both managers set on the guillotine and waiting for the outcome.
A season that began beautifully for both managers had very quickly come to a crunch. In September, Spurs’ boss, Nuno, was announced as the winner of the Manager of the Month award for August in an easily predictable win for the coach, who moved from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Spurs before the season began. Spurs did not just win all the three matches played in August at the start of the season, they did not concede a single time, even though they began the season against reigning England champions Manchester City, whom they defeated 1-0 to kick off their good run.
In that same month, Solskjaer was having it his way every time United took to the road and they were not half bad at home either. After beating Wolves, Nuno’s old side, by a 1-0 triumph from a Mason Greenwood screamer, Solskjaer’s United set a new record of 28 Premier league away matches unbeaten as they came out of the scruffy encounter with all three points to climb to third on the table behind London clubs Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham after match day three at the end of August.
Things were looking up for both managers and they were the toasts of their fans, although the Red Devils’ display often left the fans suffused with anxiety and on the edge of their seats. However, news of the highly anticipated return of their old talisman, Cristiano Ronaldo, whose contract was in its final stages at the time, and the confidence of a side bolstered with the addition of quality in the form of Raphael Varane from Real Madrid, Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund and Tom Heaton from Aston Villa gave the Old Trafford faithfuls the confidence to hope for better days ahead.
That confidence, which was replicated at Spurs after their dream Nuno start and 3-in-3 August games, was bound to ebb away very rapidly with the slide in form that both sides experienced and which led up to that crunch fixture between Spurs and United in London. The axe of a potential firing awaited either of the managers if the result did not go their way and if the team’s performance did not see some marked improvement over the ties that had taken place in the EPL since that dreamy start to the season in August.
From winning all matches in August to losing all matches in September, Nuno had no one to blame for his head being on the chopping board. Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Arsenal beat Spurs by three goals. In the game against the gunners Spurs managed to squeeze one goal in. On their part, the Red Devils, who lost to Young Boys in their UEFA Champions League opening tie of Group F after a first half red card for Aaron Wan-Bissaka, followed that embarrassment up by getting knocked out of the Carabao Cup by West Ham and lost to Aston Villa in the subsequent tie. It was no surprise when a 4-2 loss to Leicester and a 5-0 walloping by Liverpool at Old Trafford put Solskjaer’s position in jeopardy.
Fortunately for Solskjaer, he came out of the crunch match at the Spurs stadium with a 3-0 victory that showed a change of squad formation and defensive game plan. It was a consoling factor for the United board that reserved some patience for the Norwegian manager to redeem himself, but a damaging outcome for his opposite number in the London club. Immediately after the loss, Tottenham President, Daniel Levy, and Director of Football, Fabio Paratici, entered into talks to begin the process of terminating Nuno’s appointment and finally bringing the more tactical and proven winner, Antonio Conte, to Spurs.
The speed at which they finalised the process was another recurring pointer to the shelf life of football managers in the modern era of the game and how quickly one coach can go from being the toast of the club to having to become the latest example of the more immediate result-oriented culture that dictates the duration of a manager in his position at a club as juxtaposed by the years of ethos-cultivation and club culture-building that characterised the times of the Alex Fergusons and the Arsene Wengers of not so long ago in the same English Premier League.
In sharp contrast with the early success and latter slide that was Nuno’s fortune, the patience accorded the manager of bitter north London rivals, Arsenal, while the club saw their worst ever start to an EPL campaign, appears to be bearing fruit currently. Mikel Arteta’s gunners had seen a disastrously painful opening to the 2021/222 season after losing 2-0 to newboys Brentford and Chelsea before Manchester City blew them away 5-0 to leave Arsenal at the rock bottom of the table without a goal, a point and desperate to survive an early condemnation to relegation. There was a clarion call in sections of the club to “Trust the Process” of rejigging the club with a fresh set of names that could deliver on the ideals of Arteta and drag them back to reckoning but those voices were almost drowned by the “Arteta Out” army.
In the end, cooler heads prevailed at the Emirates. The club outspent their competition in the summer transfer window that restructured the defense with the introduction of Aaron Ramsdale in between the sticks, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White and Nuno Tavares at the back to complement Gabriel Magalhaes. This sleek move coupled with the tactical inclusion of Nicolas Jover, who replaced Andreas Gorgson as the team’s set-piece coach in an assistant to manager position, has practically changed the fortunes of the Arsenal team as one example of how a little bit of patience, understanding and dedicated focus towards set purposes can make a difference.
The case of the difference a quick managerial change can make was evident at Stamford Bridge and presents a counter example of the wisdom behind bringing about timely, informed and experienced handling to a squad that is disappointingly underperforming. The replacement of the underwhelming Frank Lampard with ex-Paris Saint-Germain tactician Thomas Tuchel effectively changed the standard at the heavily-invested team that Roman Abramovic had assembled in London giving them a near-unbreachable defense and a winning mentality that saw them go all the way to win the prestigious UEFA Champions League in the German manager’s very first half-season in charge.
As Conte resumes at the Spurs Stadium, the focus on managerial changes for the betterment of a floundering team’s fortunes returns to the discourse even as the sword remains hanging over Solskjaer and other EPL managers such as Aston Villa’s Dean Smith, whose life has become more difficult with the departure of Jack Grealish to Man City, Norwich City’s Daniel Farke, who looks most likely to be punished for the team’s inability to iron out a single victory while newcomers Brentford have put a couple of victories under their belt. Rafa Benitez at Everton and Brendan Rodgers at Leicester might want to watch their backs too as the pendulum of change at the managerial level swings across the EPL.
What is clear is that there is a short lifespan for these managers in the modern game and competing at the highest levels especially in clubs that demand result-oriented stay in position for their managers. When the results are not as forthcoming as demanded, Nuno’s experience shows, it is not long before that manager falls to the very demanding notion of the “sack race”.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
